Behind the thick velvet curtains of a luxurious Parisian club, just outside the Élysée Palace, a high-profile political reception was taking place. Ties were mandatory for the guests who gathered on the evening of May 26 to soak up “the future of conservatism in France and the West,” as the invitation promised. The host was an American, unknown to the French public, who nevertheless held part of the fate of the United States in his hands. kevin roberts is the president of the powerful Heritage Foundation - the most influential conservative organization in the movement's orbit Donald Trump “Make America Great Again” (MAGA). This foundation paved the way for Trump's return to power, providing him with the extremely radical document “Project 2025” - the unofficial plan of his new presidential administration.
Bald, with a bell-shaped badge (the Heritage Foundation's symbol) on his lapel, Roberts (50) gave the impression of an eloquent university professor. Born in southern Louisiana, he is one of the most ardent ideologues of Trump's second term, determined to "burn everything down" and with a penchant for radical metaphors to reshape America into its nationalist and reactionary version. Since 2021, he has led the Heritage Foundation and its 350 employees. A historian by training, he earns almost $XNUMX million a year in that role. He is a regular guest at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's residence, and has developed a close friendship with J.D. Vance, a 40-year-old nationalist Catholic and vice president.
Roberts is primarily one of the informal envoys for a key goal of Trump's second term: establishing a network with "civilizational allies in Europe," as the US State Department put it in a strategic note published on May 27. The document states the Trump team's intention to promote its vision of a "shared cultural heritage" stretching from Paris to Warsaw. In late May, Roberts traveled to France for the first time - precisely with that goal in mind.
Discreet tour
Over the course of three days, Kevin Roberts held a discreet round of meetings with prominent representatives of the far right: Marion Marechal, nephew Marine Le Pen and a member of the European Parliament, to the leaders of the “Reconquest!” party Erik Zemura i Sarom Knafo, Le Pen's new ally Erik Sijoti, as well as people close to Le Pen's deputy To Jordan Bardela.
"He is a polished professional in the field of metapolitics, and Americans are excellent marketers when it comes to promoting their product," said the financier. Francois Dervije, advisor to the National Rally (RN) party, after a meeting with an American.
Roberts also gave an interview to Le Monde, under the watchful eye of his bodyguard and his communications director. “We have a leader, and Heritage is privileged to play a role in facilitating his path,” he said politely. “If we can share those experiences and lessons from the US with our friends in France, that can be useful.”
“Project 2025” has overtaken Taylor Swift as the most searched word on Google. It has been downloaded more than 5,4 million times, a record for a single organization’s report.
He wants to help unite the far right, modeled on a rally organized in Madrid in February by the Spanish far-right Vox party under the slogan “Make Europe Great Again.” Roberts was present at the event along with nationalist and populist allies of Marine Le Pen.
“We are worried about the West, about France,” he continued. “Immigration is one of the biggest threats to us - God bless Donald Trump because he solved that. But in France, the problem is legal immigration, which the secular left and the most radical Muslims have used to undermine the project of national sovereignty. Heritage will always stand with people around the world who oppose this,” he said, adding, “I don’t care what the radical left says about me.” “I’m not angry with them, I just want to defeat them. In every election for the rest of my life.”
Alone with Trump
Three years ago, on April 21, 2022, nothing had been decided. The “conservative counteroffensive” that Kevin Roberts is talking about today seemed like a distant prospect back then. Trump, burdened by a congressional investigation into the failed coup attempt on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, traveled to the luxurious Amelia Island, off the coast of Florida, to attend the conservative organization’s annual conference. Roberts was there, wearing a red tie decorated with bells and cufflinks in the same style. On stage, the former president uttered warm words:
“This is a great group, and they will lay the groundwork and develop plans for what our movement - and your movement - will do when the American people give a colossal mandate to save America.”
Earlier in the day, Roberts and Trump had arrived by private jet from Trump's Palm Beach residence. A photo of the two men leaning against each other in white leather armchairs would not be published until later, in August 2024, in the Washington Post.
At the time of that meeting in Florida, Roberts initiated the creation of a guide for preparing a new Republican administration - now known as "Project 2025." He entrusted this task in March 2022. Polu Dansu, former chief of staff of the US Office of Personnel Management. With an annual salary of $300.000, Dance's mission was to unite 54 conservative institutes against what they called a "neo-Marxist," "liberal," and "progressive" threat.
The energetic Dance had one obsession: waging war against the federal administration, which he called “the fourth branch of government.” One April day, while returning home to Charleston, South Carolina, he was listening to the podcast “War Room.” Steve Bannon, a national-populist strategist who still believes that the 2020 election was “stolen” by Democrats and the dark forces of the so-called “deep state.” Dans then decided to make that the centerpiece of his plan of action.
Messianic style
A year later, in April 2023, the massive document was ready: 922 pages inspired by nationalism, authoritarianism, and reactionary ideas, written in a messianic style with the goal of “gathering an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and ready conservatives.” As the months passed, the mysterious “Project 2025” attracted more and more attention. It began to be linked to Trump, who even publicly expressed his gratitude to the head of the Heritage Foundation in February 2024, at a National Rifle Association (NRA) rally: “Thank you, Kevin.”
However, over the summer, four months before the election, there was a dramatic turn of events: Trump abandoned “Project 2025.” The MAGA leader said he had “no idea” who was behind it, even though 140 members of his administration from 2017 to 2020, including six former cabinet members, participated in its creation.
“Project 2025” has surpassed Taylor Swift by Google search. It has been downloaded more than 5,4 million times, a record for a report by a single organization. Its authors were aware of the risk of scaring voters. Roberts delayed the publication of his own book, “Dawn of Dawn: Washington’s Return to Save America,” which lays out the same ideas, until November 12, seven days after the vote. He explained to his team, regretfully, that it was a tactical decision: primarily to avoid antagonizing Trump. Meanwhile, Duns took on the role of scapegoat. The architect of “Project 7” resigned from the Heritage Foundation amid the tension. He returned to civilian life as a lawyer.
A guide for the president
However, after Trump was elected to a second term, “Project 2025,” conceived as a “buffet” from which Trump could choose at will, unfolded “beyond my wildest dreams,” Roberts told Le Monde. “Project 2025” envisioned mobilizing the military on the southern border to expel millions of migrants; the president signed an executive order to use the military and released videos showing Latinos, bound and surrounded by soldiers, on airport runways, before sending the National Guard to Los Angeles on June 8 to quell protests against the deportations.
The Heritage Foundation wanted to eradicate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies; the Trump administration went so far as to even search the statements of federal employees.
The new White House sometimes goes further than that. The chapter on “bureaucracy” acknowledged some of the merits of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Trump, however, allowed Elon Musk to ruthlessly dismantle the aid agency, calling it “criminal.” “Project 2025” proposed reactivating a Trump-era executive order that would allow for faster replacement of senior officials after a change of administration. The new administration preferred to carry out mass purges, without congressional approval, citing loyalty to the president.
But even as Trump has moved beyond “Project 2025,” ultraconservative factions remain unsatisfied with the first point of the agenda: reproductive policy. The guide, overseen by the Heritage Foundation, says the president has a “moral responsibility to lead the nation in restoring the culture of life,” whether by removing the abortion pill from the market or transforming the Department of Health and Human Services into a “Department of Life.” “The very moral foundations of our society are at stake,” Roberts wrote, arguing that the right to abortion, which was protected at the federal level, “has enabled the deaths of tens of millions of unborn children.”
Viktor Orban - a source of inspiration
Born into a Catholic family, Kevin Roberts, a married father of four, has earned recognition as an outstanding historian at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a doctorate on slavery and white racial hierarchy. Speaking to Le Monde, he “categorically” denied that he had changed since the time he, as he says, “used historical sources to portray the human side of slaves.”
It is said that he is inspired in his crusade for white, Christian identity politics by the Hungarian Prime Minister. Viktor Orban. In March 2024, Roberts quietly hosted the nationalist leader at the Heritage Foundation, after Orban visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago. “Hungary has inspired us,” Roberts said. Thanks to Orban, he argues, “national identity in Hungary has been resurrected. The European Union is using the platitude of democracy against him. That’s a lesson for us in the United States.”
A few years ago, in Budapest, Roberts was impressed by the large-scale infrastructure projects that Orban had launched to erase all traces of the communist past. Roberts saw it as proof that political will can achieve anything — even to correct history. “There are Soviet-style buildings in Washington,” he added, such as “the U.S. Department of Education, which is fortunately being dismantled right now.”
JD Vance - Natural Ally
At first glance, Trump was not a natural choice for the Heritage Foundation. For a long time, senior advisors at Heritage viewed the nationalist populist Trump as an outsider. In 2016, Michael Needham, then head of Heritage's lobbying wing, called him a "clown" who "needs to get out of the race," during an appearance on Fox News. Today, Needham serves as an advisor to the Secretary of State. When Rubija.
However, the authors of “Project 2025” are now Trump’s loyal lieutenants who surround him whether he is receiving guests in the Oval Office or performing on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a global gathering of conservatives. Ras Vout, who authored a chapter on the unique power of the presidency and governing by executive order, is now the White House budget director. Stephen Miller, a nationalist ideologue who devised a plan for mass deportations of migrants, is Trump's deputy chief of staff and a central figure in his administration. Tom Homan, whom Trump has called his “border czar,” serves as executive assistant director for enforcement and deportations. Peter Navarro, the ideologue of “fair trade” within the framework of “Project 2025”, is a White House trade advisor and advocates for massive tariffs. And finally, John Ratcliffe runs the ultra-sensitive Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
"Everything was written, but we didn't take it seriously enough. Now the architects of 'Project 2025' are implementing a long-term agenda that targets ideas, culture and freedom," said American-Nigerian writer Tope Folarin.
Trump is their formal leader, but the Heritage Foundation’s natural ally is J.D. Vance. Having converted to Catholicism at age 35, the vice president has embraced the evangelical wing’s rhetoric on family values, “God-given individual rights,” and “religious commitment and spirituality (as) the greatest sources of happiness around the world,” as stated in “Project 2025.” “He will certainly be one of the leaders, if not the main leader, of our movement,” Roberts told Politico in March 2024.
The Trojan horse of Trumpism in Europe has many faces. Before the Heritage Foundation and its satellites, Steve Bannon was already trying to unite the far-right movements of the Old Continent ahead of the 2019 European elections. He was, among other things, Marine Le Pen's guest of honor at her party's congress in 2018.
Although he was not directly involved in the creation of “Project 2025,” he never misses an opportunity to thank his “friends” at the Heritage Foundation. “No one has ever published a book like this. Those four years allowed us to draw up a plan and design everything that is now being implemented, and to provide a staff of 500 people in the administration.”
The EU - an institution that should be dismantled
Nikola Be, former deputy leader Le Pen and now a member of the European Parliament, says that “Trumpism has revitalized the Republican Party through a vision based on identity. After all, the civilizational source of America is Europe, with its deep cultural and Christian roots,” he enthused. He traveled to Washington in February to establish contacts at the Heritage Foundation.
Be was attending a cocktail party for conservative, nationalist and identity-based MEPs at the Heritage Foundation's headquarters on Massachusetts Avenue that day. Such meetings with the European far right are held regularly. In late January, Heritage met with Czech politician Filip Turek, a climate change skeptic and a fan of Third Reich artifacts, a member of the anti-EU group Patriots for Europe. On March 11, Heritage hosted a closed-door meeting between the Hungarian Matthias Corvinus College, a school run by Viktor Orbán's political advisor, and the Ordo Iuris Foundation, a Polish traditionalist organization.
It was on this occasion that the two institutes presented their report "The Great Reset", which aims to dismantle the European Union from within. "When it comes to Europe, President Trump has a strategy of divide and rule," he said. EJ Antoni, one of the economists behind Project 2025, ahead of the visit of the Italian Prime Minister George Meloni Washington in April.
It was in these backstage meetings of the Heritage Foundation that the rightward shift in the US, and partly in Europe, was consolidated through a series of critically-minded conferences on climate agendas and vaccine policies.
There were also curious participants from the center at these gatherings. Among them were David Amiel, former advisor to the French President Emanuel Macron, who happened to be at the Heritage Foundation during the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting in April. He left the meeting “extremely concerned about the ultra-reactionary American offensive” and informed the Elysee Palace about it. “Their real project is to dismantle all the progress that America has made since the 1960s: the right to abortion, awareness of climate change, civil rights…” Amiel stressed. “Within the American far-right bloc, there are three wings: the populist, which appeals to white workers from deindustrialized states; the oligarchic, which is made up of tech tycoons; and the ultra-reactionary, which is represented by the Heritage Foundation. The culture war brings them all together – it is the glue of the Trumpist coalition.”
Entry points to Europe
Meanwhile, entry points into Europe have multiplied, and political figures linked to the Heritage Foundation's networks are increasingly coming to the fore. Trump has chosen him as US ambassador to the EU. Andrew Pazder, a former CEO of a fast food chain known for its provocative commercials (“I love beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis”).
The former anti-abortion activist, who helped write Missouri’s 1989 law that defined “life begins at conception,” is now a prominent voice within the Heritage Foundation. “My great friend,” Roberts said when he hosted him on his podcast on Jan. 22, accompanied by country music. On the show, Pazder harshly criticized the financial elite that supports inclusive business policies, calling them “socialism in sheep’s clothing” that hurts shareholder profits.
Other prominent figures from conservative networks gathered around Charles Kushner, Trump's ambassador to France and the father of his son-in-law. Gabriel Scheinman, a guest of the Heritage Foundation in his capacity as director of the Alexander Hamilton Society, another Washington-based organization, is expected in Paris as the ambassador's chief of staff.
In the US, Democrats and leaders of liberal organizations are repenting today. As a Nigerian-American writer put it: Tope Folarin, executive director of the progressive Institute for Policy Studies: “Everything was written, but we didn’t take it seriously enough. Now the architects of “Project 2025” are implementing a long-term agenda that targets ideas, culture and freedoms.” And, also, the European liberal model. “Several American foundations are showing increasing interest in Western Europe,” he confirmed. Nikola Konker, a prominent figure in the French branch of the Republicans Abroad organization. “Heritage could inspire a similar doctrine here - the French Project 2027.”
In March, the Trump administration swiftly ordered major European corporations to suspend their internal policies on inclusion and equality. The move angered business leaders, unions and the French government, which said: “The values of the new American government are not ours.”
In line with Vice President J.D. Vance’s ideological offensive in Munich in February, the Heritage Foundation has produced a series of “free speech” documents denouncing what it calls “Brussels’ digital imperialism” for imposing European standards for regulating hate speech online. According to the documents, such “censorship by big tech companies” would have “devastating consequences” for the US election.
Yet on May 27, while Roberts was meeting with key far-right figures in Paris, Trump sent his Homeland Security Secretary to Poland, Kristi Noem, to support the nationalist-conservative candidate Karol Navrocki in the second round of the presidential election. “He has to be the next president of Poland. Do you understand me?” exclaimed Noem, pointing her finger, on stage at CPAC, which was held in Poland for the first time. Her wish came true: the candidate and Trump fan, who had visited the White House a month earlier, narrowly won the election on June 1. The Heritage Foundation celebrated this “huge victory,” saying: “Europe may be saved after all.”
Prepared by: NB
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